Tim Melville-Ross CBE
Chair
Higher Education Funding Council for England
Northavon House
Coldharbour Lane
Bristol
BS16 1QD

23 July 2009

Dear Tim

Funding for additional students in 2009/10

On 20 July, the Secretary of State made a statement to Parliament about an increase in funds for student support to support additional students. In that statement he said that there was unprecedented demand for higher education places this year, and indications that there were institutions able to recruit more students to meet this demand without compromising the quality of their offer. He therefore announced that government would fund the financial support for an extra 10,000 full time undergraduate student places for 2009/10, in courses which will equip young people with the skills they need for the jobs of the future. Specifically the statement mentioned courses related to the New Industry, New Jobs agenda. It pointed to sectors such as digital industries, the low carbon economy and advanced manufacturing, together with business services as those that would lead the way in the recovery. No additional teaching grant would accompany these extra places.

I am writing now on behalf of the Secretary of State about how I would like the Council to respond to this announcement.

I am looking to the Council to work out, in line with the spirit of the announcement to Parliament, the detail of which courses should qualify, and to let institutions know how many extra students they can recruit without penalty. The annex to this letter lists the broad areas that I think should be prioritised. You will also want to take account of which institutions want to offer extra places on this basis. The statement made it clear that it was up to individual institutions to decide whether or not they wanted to offer places.

When John Denham wrote to you on 21 January he asked the Council to minimise and preferably eliminate over-recruitment in 2009/10. The announcement made this week means that an extra 10,000 students can now be recruited across the sector, which will be welcome news for many institutions, as well as for prospective students and their families. But the overarching warning against over-recruitment in 09/10 remains very important to avoid the transfer of HEFCE grant back to this Department in order to meet the consequent unanticipated student support costs.

I appreciate the Council's continuing help in managing this extra allocation of places in ways that will benefit potential students, institutions and the national interest.

Yours ever

David Lammy

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Annex - Priority course areas

• Biological and Related Health Sciences (excluding psychology, sports science and those that are primarily practice based)
• Physical sciences (excluding geography)
• Mathematical and computer science
• Engineering
• Technology
• Economics
• Business studies